Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Film actor with multiple Oscars, known for roles in Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, and Captain Phillips.
On the island
Eight records
All right, Dean Martin was the epitome of adult smoothness.
I had never heard Dusty Springfield sing doodling. Until about five years ago. And when I heard it, my head exploded.
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (Introduction)Favourite
this was the wow moment of my life going from a kid trying to figure out what's interesting in this life to young man yearning to be an artist.
Theme from How the West Was Won
it never fails to stir my soul.
I remember thinking that for the first time, oh, this is an independent representation of a song.
Mama said knock you out means I'm going to figure out how to do the right thing regardless of the confines that you place on me.
If I was to have a BBC knife held at my throat and said, you must name one piece of music as being the most beautiful recording ever made, what is it? This would be the choice that I would come to.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:23Do you hate the 'nice guy' thing at any time?
No, no, I will tell you this. I was very lucky because the first job I had as a professional actor was in the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. And I learned a very important lesson, and it was drilled into me by the other professionals in the company, that you had to show up on time, you had to know what you were going to say, and even if you did not like the people personally that you were working with, you had to respect their process. Because if anybody becomes a squeaky wheel, that means the show doesn't go on. And guess what? They could be fired. Anybody can be replaced. So I have always been able to come on to a set, I think, and give everybody their proper due.
Presenter asks
8:28You said of the movie's director, Bob Zemeckis, he made a very special movie. He cracked some kind of code. What do you mean by that?
Well, I never knew it, but Bob was making a movie about Vietnam America. I didn't know that. He was making a movie about how wondrous it was that despite one of the most tumultuous decades of our lives, with one of the great nadirs of our nation's history, our involvement in Vietnam, how that scarred us in ways that I didn't quite understand. And the fact that Forrest and Lieutenant Dan survived when Bubba did not, that was very, very palpable for him. And the survivor's sense, the fact that towards the end of the movie, Forrest is alive, Lieutenant Dan is alive, but all these other people have gone. And the idea that life goes on and so therefore it is forever hopeful, he landed, I think, in an unspoken dilemma that an awful lot of people were going through.
The keepsakes
The book
William Manchester
a book called A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester that is about the Dark Ages, back at a time when no one in humankind traveled more than a few miles from the hut that they were born in, and the incredible transition of not only just the technological level of life in the Dark Ages, but the intellectual boundaries that were completely surpassed during that time.
The luxury
a working manual typewriter (Hermes 3000)
with that, you can go anywhere and you'll always have something to do with a typewriter. ... Let's take a Hermes 3000, made in Switzerland, indestructible.
Presenter asks
10:21How comfortable do you feel being that person who doesn't necessarily always see the full picture?
All right. It's funny that you should say that because our primary responsibility as actors is to behave properly. And it is very easy to behave that you are frightened when scary guys are coming in screaming at you and pointing AK-47 in your face. If so much of making movies is having the proper logical procedure and then displaying the proper human behavior at the same time, anything you can do in order to make that genuine is to be treasured.
Presenter asks
13:25For you, as you speak, the seven-year-old thinking, listening to the Beatles and saying there is a place, you were caught in the crossfire and the complexity of a really difficult situation.
Complexity more than crossfire. I never came across anybody that was abusive or angry to the point that they took it out on us. We were confused because no one explained anything to us. No one said, hey, listen, you guys are great. You haven't done anything wrong. Give us a couple of moments and we'll figure out what we're going to do. No one ever said that to us.
Presenter asks
18:58What do you think Mrs. Castle saw in you?
I think she saw an energy in me and an interest in me that other kids did not have. I chewed up school like a delicious meal.
Presenter asks
38:25Can I ask you what you make of the state of American politics right now?
Yeah, every four years in America, it's built into our DNA and our calendar that the circus comes to town. The circus has been in town. Oh man, there's a lot of bears. There's a lot of bear acts. There's a lion tamer. There's a beautiful lady up on a trapeze. There's a bunch of clowns jumping in and out of cars. Who's going to win? Let me test my powers of clairvoyance. I will say this. Right now, there is a lot of credence and credibility is being given over to the mob. And I will tell you, by fact, the mob is really only about 28% of the people. And 28% of the people in America don't get to establish the rules. They get to yell, they get to complain, they get to demonstrate, they get to do all those things, but they don't get to rule. Somebody beyond the mob is going to be the person who's going to be elected President of the United States. That's as far as my powers of ESP go.
“There's a line in here that is the most unhip lyric I have ever heard in any song everywhere, which is, let's put on our sneakers and slacks and relax a boo.”
“Um what it was was it was the vocabulary of loneliness.”
“Never retire. Do less, don't work at the same pace, but never give up that pursuit of the spark that has always fascinated you.”
“Loneliness is to be avoided. Solitude is to be sought. And I seek out solitude for the right amount of time, right when I think I'm making the biggest fool of myself and I'm much too big for my britches.”